Family! I love you all! And I miss you! But everthing is going great! This place is pretty awesome. I learn so much everyday. Ok, so I have zero time to email here at the MTC, so I'm going to see how much I can pump out in rapid fire. I'm going to disregard the finer points of grammar and sentence structure to a certain extent. First off, I imagine most of you have already seen The Dark Knight Rises. This makes me happy for you, but as you can probably tell from the subject of my email, I'm feeling some sadness today. My roommates and I held a moment of silence this morning for The Dark Knight Rises just to show a little respect. It was a touching moment. Also, last night, Elder Phillips, an elder in my district with a healthy amount of chest hair, volunteered to have his chest hair shaved into the Batman symbol. I was elected to do the honors, and I have to say that it came out pretty darn cool looking. When I can send you guys pictures, you'll be able to see the masterpiece. So, though it is a dark day, we have found ways to cope here at the MTC. I hope that The Dark Knight Rises is really phenomenal. Could you bring a picture of me with you to the theater when you see it if you haven't already? I would appreciate that. I'm kidding... kinda. So things are crazy here. It's a sad life for a poor little vegetarian boy at the MTC cafeteria. It's actually just a sad life for anybody who likes to eat food and have it make them feel halfway decent. I think I'm going to pull through though. Everything else compensates, fortunately. The teachers are awesome, and I'm gaining so many new insights every day. There are so many simple things that I just never thought of. I have an opportunity to teach just about every day here, so that's a really good experience. My companion and I have been working with this one investigator who is actually our teacher playing a role, and he is very hard to teach. He falls asleep during the lessons and just doesn't listen. But, yesterday, my companion and I drew up what we thought was a money lesson plan and went into the lesson ready to kill it. We tried to follow the Spirit, and he committed to reading the Book of Mormon and praying about it and also he said that he would be willing to be baptized eventually. It was awesome. But it's so cool how my scripture study has changed since I've been here. As I study, I often subconsciously do so with the investigators in mind, and often the things I learn are things that I think will help them. As a bonus, I often learn something completely new as well. There is so much I could tell you all about, but I literally get 30 minutes to email and then it shuts off, so I have to breeze through. But I'm keeping a journal so I can fill in the details when I get more time to email. Also, feel free to email any questions so I know what you want to know. So how about a few funny stories? My district is just so cool, and everyone in it has something special about them and is a top notch individual. There is one elder from Melbourne, Australia named Elder Cooper, and as such, I find myself speaking with an Australian accent automatically at times. But he is a really cool guy. He's a convert, and he's always sharing really insightful thoughts with us. Another really cool elder in the district is Elder Heiner. He's from Star Valley, Wyoming so you can imagine a little bit what he might be like, I'm sure. But he is such a stud. I think I told you in the letter maybe that he has cerebral palsy. He just doesn't let that hold him back at all. But he is seriously the comedic relief of the group. Some of his roommates are keeping a journal of all the hilarious things he says. Just the other day, he gave one of his choicest lines: "I was a model in a former life; I just had a better body." He is constantly making such jokes. He being from Star Valley, and being a cowboy and a hunter and a country music listener and all that, there have been times when he and I have disagreed politically/socially. We obviously don't really talk politics here at the MTC, but little things come up, and we tend to have our differences of opinion. I didn't think much of it, because our discussions are always respectful and friendly, but the other day, he made it clear that he noticed our differences. He was behind me at the salad bar, and I was about to get some salad, but there were no tongs in the dish to pick it up with. After thinking for a moment, I just used my bowl to dip into the salad and scoop some out. Elder Heiner, looking on, said something like "See, even a Democrat can have intuition." I had to laugh at that. It was pretty hilarious. But he really is the coolest guy, and he is definitely always good for a laugh. I'm at the 3 minute mark now, so I'm going to blast some stuff rapid fire.
Dad: Alma 10: 3 has your answer about how we know that Lehi is from Manasseh.
All: How many senines are in a limnah?
My last one sent too early, but I'll try to cover more next week! I gotta go! I love you!
Elder McDonald
Awesome! Don't you just love what the spirit can accomplish. Keep up the great work. Our prayers are with you.
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